Global Collapse

Chapter 435 She Died Later

The fat man stared at the book that Gu Mian had suddenly pulled out of her bosom: "Doctor, do you mean that some of the instances we experienced are in this book?"

He had read through this second-dimensional world book before, but he hadn't found any clues about the dungeon.

“Speaking of which…” The fat man didn’t doubt Gu Mian’s words. He stared intently at the book in Gu Mian’s hand, “What would happen if we took a pen and wrote ‘World Explosion’ on this book right now?”

The dungeon world won't really explode, will it...?

Seeing through the fat man's thoughts, Gu Mian said, "It won't really explode, because many copies of the book 'Second World' have been published, and what we are seeing now is just one of them. I think there should be an original version of this book, and the original version is the real world."

By this time, Gu Mian had already turned several pages, and the sharp-eyed fat man noticed a line written in black pen on that page—"World Explosion."

It was clearly written by Gu Mian.

That's why he was so certain that writing anything on it wouldn't destroy the instance world.

"Well..." the fat man hesitated before speaking, "what if we found the original anime world and wrote 'World Explosion' on it?"

Gu Mian suddenly realized that the fat man harbored a great deal of malice towards the world.

“I remember Chu Changge said,” Gu Mian coughed, “The book Wang Yushu wrote is divided into several parts, with only the first part being close to the real world; I think Wang Yushu must have read the real ‘Second World’ book and copied the settings from that book in the beginning, which is why I have this Second World book in my hand today. So the original Second World exists in reality.”

“The world in the book,” the fat man pondered, “then doctor, since one of the worlds might be a world in the book, and that book also exists in the real world, could the other copies of the world also exist in the real world in a similar book-like form?”

At this point, the fat man saw his brother in the water: "For example, some worlds exist in the form of CDs, and some worlds exist in the form of games..."

“Possibly,” Gu Mian said, looking at the book in her hand. “If we could get our hands on them, it would be like having those copies of the world in our own hands, and then we could do whatever we wanted.”

"Do whatever you want..." The fat man's face flushed slightly. "That's great, although I've seen doctors say you've always been pretty willful."

Chu Changge pushed up his glasses: "If you really received the items that the world had entrusted to you, what would you do?"

Gu Mian always felt that those dungeons had ill intentions towards her. If only she could obtain the dungeon worlds...

“Burn them to end this game… Of course, that’s impossible,” Gu Mian put her hands in her pockets, “What if there really is my twin brother inside?”

As he spoke, he took a few steps to the other side to chase after Xiao Hong, who was already frolicking in the water. The fat man watched Gu Mian's retreating figure as he chased after Xiao Hong and said, "Doctor, your thinking is wrong. In general, when the male protagonist of a novel finds out that there is someone who looks exactly like him, he shouldn't first think that it is the dark side of himself, but should think about how to get rid of him!"

"Never mind," Chu Changge said softly to the fat man, "I remember that when Gu Mian was in the orphanage, she really wanted to see her parents and hoped that one day they would come to pick her up."

The fat man was stunned for a moment. Gu Mian still referred to himself as an orphan, and his wish had obviously not been fulfilled.

“He won’t mention that matter when he’s older, but I think he would have been very happy if he had relatives around when he was young, whether it was his parents or his siblings,” Chu Changge glanced at his brother who was still soaking in the water, “Of course, I’m not referring to those kinds of siblings.”

The fat man didn't know anything about Gu Mian's childhood, and he asked in confusion, "Didn't you have any friends? Didn't the doctor have any friends when she was a child?"

Chu Changge took a few steps to sit down on the nearby bench: "He used to have friends, but you know Gu Mian's luck. He would always get hurt or something else would happen if he played with him. Gradually, he lost all his friends."

"Later, a couple adopted him. The couple had visited the orphanage many times before and they were very kind to Gu Mian. You could tell that Gu Mian was very happy at that time. But later, the couple also died. The day after the adoption procedures were completed, Gu Mian had not yet gone to his new home to take a look.
“Since then, almost no one has spoken to him. He has no choice but to entertain himself. When you first met him, you thought he was a pretty cheerful person, right?” Chu Changge looked at the shimmering lake surface, where the sunlight cast a golden glow, making the water appear like shimmering scales.

The fat man looked at the lake and calmed down: "Were you the only one playing with him back then?"

Chu Changge paused for a moment: "No, there's one more person..."

"Who else...?" The fat man turned to look at him. Chu Changge's pause made him feel that things seemed to be heading in a sad direction.

"There was another girl named Lin Xiaowei, but she also died in the second year of junior high school. I remember when I was very young—probably in the first or second grade—no one wanted to talk to Gu Mian. But you know how kids always like to play with other people. At that time, Gu Mian would always go to find other people and follow them around, trying to talk to them, but no one paid any attention to him."

"That period lasted for about a year. Later, Gu Mian understood that he had been living alone since the third grade. Lin Xiaowei would often stick to him and play rock-paper-scissors to make him happy... I told you about this before, right?"

Chu Changge turned to look at the fat man.

“Ah, I’ve mentioned it before,” the fat man recalled. “I remember you saying that there was a girl who always pestered the doctor to play rock-paper-scissors with him. Whoever lost had to get a kiss, and eventually the doctor’s face was swollen from all the kisses…”

However, the ending wasn't very good.

The fat man still clearly remembered the last words Chu Changge uttered in the wind when she told the story—"Later she died."

(End of this chapter)